Keep Me Forever
by evieeden
Summary: Jasper, Peter and Charlotte live contentedly in Texas, but when they are forced to move to Arizona and inadvertantly rescue a human one night, they have to decide whether they'd rather keep or kill her before their lives become more difficult.
1. Rescue

**So here's my new fic. This was written on a whim, so updates will probably come slowly, but the fic should be short so it won't take too long for it to be completed. Thanks to venis_envy and Bob for pre-reading this for me and giving me the courage to post it.**

**This chapter contains possible triggers, such as attempted sexual abuse, so please bear this in mind before reading.**

**I don't own Twilight. Stephanie Meyer does.**

**Thanks for reading, I hope you like it.**

**Rescue**

**JPOV**

We were on the move again.

Although Peter, Charlotte and I had settled in the north of the state, away from the Southern war zone, Maria was beginning to extend her territory northwards again and unless someone pushed her back, we would be within scouting range.

Seeing her again was something I hoped to avoid at all costs, despite our surprisingly amicable parting. I knew that she understood the emotional turmoil that remaining with her was causing, but I also knew that she was constantly fighting a war, one in which no-one was safe. It was better for the both of us that I had left as fast as I could, rather than stuck around and waited for her to kill me.

Although I guessed really we were lucky that we'd had sixty years here, travelling round, before we were forced to move out of state. Taking the easy route, we had decided to move west into Arizona. If we were sensible, we probably should have headed northwards, into the more sheltered and overcast parts of the country, but we were stubborn and the dry, exposed deserts and shrub lands were our home.

Plus, if we were in a secluded enough area, it was nice to just strip off and feel the burning sun warm our cool skin. Fucking sparkling.

So now we were on our way to Phoenix; we had agreed that the city was the ideal place to find food – people got lost so easily nowadays, a couple more going missing was nothing new.

We were lucky when we got there, finding an unoccupied house in the suburbs that we quickly commandeered and in no time at all we were settled. The house had been painted and decorated within an inch of its life thanks to Charlotte, and Peter and I had swiftly repaired all the fences and boundaries to the property so no-one could invade our privacy.

I was taking full advantage of the fact that nobody could see into our garden right now. Charlotte and Peter were skulking about the house, so I was lying in the middle of the lawn, completely naked, my eyes closed, enjoying the freedom it afforded me.

I heard giggling coming from the kitchen before Charlotte's scent reached me, followed shortly by the lady in question. She was feeling happy...and mischievous.

Raising my arms, I plucked her out of the air as she pounced on me and twisted my body around, pinning her underneath me. Opening me eyes, I could see that she was grinning at me, which abruptly changed to a soft smile as she brushed my hair back out of my face. Fondness and affection surrounded both of us

I pushed off of her and flopped down onto my back again, my eyes closing to block the light out, my arm drawing Charlotte into my side. Her fingers traced abstract patterns into my chest, the scratch of her nails against my scars tingling nicely.

"Where's Peter?" I finally spoke.

"He's remodelling upstairs. He's creating two studies, one for each of you, and then two large bedrooms, so that we can get privacy from each other once in a while."

I thought about that, wondering if they resented me for always being there, wondering if they ever wished it was just the two of them again.

"What are you thinking about?" Charlotte's quiet voice broke into my musings.

"Do you need privacy from me sometimes?"

Laughter was the last response I was expecting to receive and I sat up, affronted.

"Jasper, Jasper." Charlotte pushed onto my chest, forcing me to lie down again and then crawled over so she was stretched out lengthways along my body. "We love you – love having you around. It's for if you ever want time away from us...or if I want time away from you and Peter." She grinned cheekily. "Which is entirely likely."

"Hey," I protested, tapping her gently on the ass. She moaned at the action and I smirked, smacking it again and enjoying the feeling of her writhing on top of me. I'd forgotten how much Charlotte enjoyed being punished.

Her legs slipped down on either side of my hips and she immediately began to grind against my now erect cock, her lust feeding my own. We kissed lazily, our tongues entwining and I slid my hands up the back of her shirt, stroking her skin. She moaned and I pushed her upwards to draw her top over her head. Craning my neck upwards, I kept our mouths busy as I divested her of her bra, my hands coming up to cup and caress her breasts.

I manipulated her flesh easily, her moans and cries getting louder and louder as I fed our lustful emotions back to her, heightening the experience for her. She rocked against me, her jeans were rough against my erection; it was a welcome burn though. We weren't exactly delicate here.

Sliding down my body, she winked at me before engulfing my cock in her mouth. The back of my head hit the ground hard enough to cave the dirt beneath me inwards. I groaned loudly as she swirled her tongue around the tip, pushing the skin back to dip it in the weeping slit. Suckling lightly on the head of my dick, one of her hands came down to cup my balls, raking her nails over them every now and then, the welcome edge of pain mixing with the pleasure.

Her tongue bathed my shaft before she took me into her mouth again, plunging down and sucking upwards with force. My eyes slammed shut and my jaw clenched at the intense feelings, my fingers digging into the soil on either side of my body. My hips were twitching at the sensation of her sucking me off and her hands slammed down on them, pinning me down. I briefly wondered why she had bothered and then I felt her teeth.

Biting done hard enough to leave the sting of venom behind, but not strip the skin off of my dick, she scraped them up my length.

I went crazy.

Snarling and growling, my body wrenched to one side trying to both get away from the exquisite torment and move even closer. The rumbling in my chest grew deeper as she increased the pressure on my lower body, stopping me from moving. My searching palms came up with another handful of dirt and I realised what she'd done.

I couldn't move, but Charlotte could.

My arms shot in front of me, grabbing her hair and wrapping the silky strands tightly, almost painfully, around my fingers. I pushed her head down and almost choked at the pleasure as she deep-throated me. She moaned around my cock, moving her lips even faster, allowing me to fuck her mouth. Apart from the hands on my hips and her agile tongue, she was as passive as can be, allowing me to get myself off using her.

As I forced myself into the back of her throat several more times, I noticed her beginning to squirm, rubbing her thighs together in a futile attempt to relieve the pressure that was beginning to build up in her centre. The more she writhed, the more I felt her frustration rolling off her.

My balls were beginning to tighten, signalling the start of my release, and as I came I made sure to unfurl my orgasm around her, sending Charlotte hurtling into her own. The cycle of lust we were surrounded by continued to revolve between us until my entire body suddenly relaxed, my muscles uncoiling from their tensed position.

Whimpering quietly, Charlotte carefully lapped up any remnants of cum left on my cock before wriggling up to lay down beside me again, her nails back to mapping my scars.

She felt wrong though - hollow somehow - and from the squeezing of her still-clad legs, that one release hadn't been enough to take the edge off. Obviously I had thrown too much lust at her in my distraction and she was suffering for it.

"Jasper, please... I need... please..."

Hushing her, I placed a light kiss on her lips and then quickly shredded her jeans and underwear. She mirrored my previous actions, gripping my hair tightly, and I raised an eyebrow at her, feeling her arousal skyrocket before I winked and then, without any preliminaries, buried my face into her pussy.

Smirking at her cries and moans, I slid two fingers into her soaking wet cunt and scissored them, sucking her clit between my lips and flicking my tongue lightly over the sensitive bud. She screamed out two orgasms before her limbs began twitching uncontrollably and she yanked on my hair, drawing me back up to settle besides her.

She was panting heavily and I smiled at the adorable trait that she hadn't lost when she left her humanity behind. We rested together, smoothing unruly hair out of each other's faces and caressing cool skin with equally cool palms until Peter came to interrupt.

"Looks like I missed a good time," he remarked lazily, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops.

"Why did you?" I asked. "You could have joined us."

He grinned at me. "I preferred watching, but thanks for the offer." He laughed. "Anyway, you're lucky we put these fences up so the neighbours couldn't get a look in...as it is they probably thought that Charlotte was being murdered by a wild animal with all the noise you two were making."

Charlotte shrugged and smiled unrepentantly. "Oops."

"Anyway, I thought I'd come and tell you two to get dressed; it's getting dark and I'm hungry. Want to go hunting?"

"Yeah, I could eat." Charlotte stretched out, her body rubbing against mine and I felt my cock begin to react. Giggling, she pulled away from me and stood up. "Down boy."

Peter laughed until I glared at him and threw a bucketful of lust at him. He shut up pretty quickly and began eyeing me and Charlotte speculatively.

"Honestly, Jasper." Charlotte was holding up her ruined pants. "I really liked those jeans."

I stood up too and pressed a light kiss to her temple. "I'll buy you some new ones." Strolling over towards Peter, I whispered in his ear, "Don't even think about it. You're the one who wanted to go get dinner."

He growled at me lowly, but I ignored him and went to find some clothes.

Five minutes later we were out on the streets, Charlotte skipping along between us, holding both of our hands. Although we probably looked perfectly relaxed as we walked, I could feel every one of my senses straining outwards, trying to pick out the perfect victim. Lately, we had been picking off the scum of society - murderers, thieves and rapists, instead of the homeless. Peter had been getting bored of the unappetizing taste of those living on the streets; their blood always tasted thinner somehow, less appealing.

A raucous burst of obviously drunk laughter three streets over caught my attention and I carefully guided Charlotte and Peter in that direction. Squeezing my hand, Charlotte darted ahead of us to scope out the landscape. A petite blond looking around always looked less suspicious than if Peter or I attempted recon.

She was back quickly, her usually cheerful face marred by a vicious scowl. "I've found our food for the night, I hope you're hungry."

I looked at her curiously. "How many are there?"

"When I counted, about fifteen men and one woman."

"Fifteen?" Peter exclaimed. "I can maybe take about four, but I wouldn't want any more than that."

"I don't care," she muttered. "I don't care if you feed from them or if you just break their necks, as long as they end up dead that's all that matters." Her anger was building, starting to overcome me, and I quickly tried to calm her down before her emotions fuelled my rage.

"Charlotte," Peter coaxed.

"The woman there, the one whose house it is, is throwing a party for her boyfriend's friends. She's taking money from them all..." she choked and I watched as she carefully swallowed a mouthful of venom. I don't think I had seen her so upset in a while.

I rubbed her arm soothingly and she managed to finish.

"She's taking money from them all...they're paying her for the opportunity to fuck her daughter."

"What?"

"She's pimping her out. I didn't see the girl, she was in an upstairs room, but I could hear her crying, and they're all there downstairs, laughing and drinking and making crude jokes about what they're going to do with her...the things they were saying."

Charlotte let out a tearless sob and I understood her distress. Despite the myths, the legends and the whispers surrounding us, despite our diet, we weren't as evil as everyone made us out to be. I mean, we weren't angels, but we weren't monsters either and cruelty was something we only practised on our enemies, not on the innocent.

"I want them to die," she spat out. "No-one deserves what they're planning to do to her."

Peter nodded. "Then they'll die. Do we have a plan or shall we just go in guns blazing?"

I checked out our surroundings; luckily the houses in this area were fairly spread out from each other so I didn't think eyewitnesses would be a problem. We didn't know what the situation inside the house was though and that could present problems.

"I think we should just play it by ear, but remember, once we go in, everyone has to die, we can't have anyone escaping."

They nodded and we surrounded the house. The men were still braying with delight, their paunched bodies already showing their excitement at what they were about to do. I swallowed back my revulsion and knocked on the door. A large-set man wearing a too tight baseball jersey opened the door and beckoned me in.

Clapping me on the back, he grinned at me. "You must be one of Renee's friends."

I smiled politely but said nothing. Reaching behind me, I twisted the lock, breaking it and trapping everyone inside the house. I expected that when it came to it, some of them could get out through the windows...that is, if they could fit through. A click from the back of the property indicated that Peter had done the same; Charlotte was waiting outside for the rush that would occur when people inevitably tried to escape.

"So are you looking forward to trying the little bitch out? She's a pretty one, all soft and sweet. You'll like her." He didn't seem to notice my silent stare, continuing to talk. "I just knew when I met Renee, that little Bella would be a winner, that she was our ticket out of here. I mean, look at everyone who's come to give her a go." He waved his arm across the room and I took in the scum of the species crammed into the tiny space.

They were mostly late middle-aged men, long gone to seed; their chubby faces and grotesquely swollen bodies disgusting me. I would never understand why humans didn't take care of themselves as they grew older. They all had drinks in their clammy hands, the alcohol making their speech boastful and obscene. I heard one of them laugh across the room and begin to detail what he planned to do with "the little cunt." From the sexual tension rolling off of him, he hadn't been near a woman in years – or at least, not a willing one.

A flash of blond caught my eye as I saw Peter begin to silently thin the herd.

Near him, but completely unawares, a petite red-headed woman squirmed and wriggled her way through the room, dishing out drinks and accepting money in return, which she always tucked into her bra with a suggestive wink. This was obviously the mother. I tried to get a read on her emotional state, to see whether she was participating in this willingly, but all I felt was her lust towards half the men and the excitement she felt when they gave her money.

Perhaps she should have been the one whoring herself out; it would certainly fulfil all of her emotional needs right now. However, it wasn't her I was interested in; I wanted to see where this daughter was – assess the situation.

"Where is she?" I demanded coldly.

"Upstairs," the idiot smiled at me and tapped the side of his nose condescendingly. "But you won't get to play unless you pay." He laughed and took another swig of the beer in his hand.

"I want to see her beforehand."

The idiot thought about it for a minute before shrugging. "I suppose there's no harm in you watching. The first group have already gone up." He clapped me on the back of the shoulder and I gritted my teeth to stop myself from taking his arm off just yet.

First group... So not only were they raping the poor girl, they were gang raping her. She had no chance.

...or at least, she didn't. Now she would.

The idiot waved a hand towards the stairs and I climbed up them silently, not wanting to alert anyone to my presence. All the doors were shut, except for one at the far end where all the noise was coming from.

"Fucking bitch, why can't you stay still?" The voice was harsh and was met with muffled screaming. I realised that they must be holding something over the girl's mouth to stop the noise from reaching downstairs...In a few minutes I could guarantee that it wouldn't be a problem.

I peered sideways through the gap in the door to see how many of them there were; only four, at a quick count. One pinning her arms down above her head, two with their pants around their ankles, fighting to get her jeans off her thrashing legs, and one palming his tiny dick, his other hand covering her mouth and nose, stopping her from breathing properly. I had to give the girl credit though, she wasn't giving in without a fight; I watched, amused, as a well-placed kick broke the nose of one of her attackers, blood spurting done the lower half of his face.

I was immediately hungry, my thirst rising, the venom coating the inside of my mouth thickly.

The two men at her feet cursed and grabbed her legs, pinning them down tightly. The man with his pathetic excuse for a cock already out backhanded her across the face and her head flew to one side, coughing out a small amount of blood as she attempted to recover from the blow. The man who hit her climbed up onto the bed and pinched her nose, her mouth automatically opening as she tried to breathe. The man lowered his dick towards her face.

Enough.

I slammed the door open loudly, speeding into the room and grabbing the man by the scruff of the neck. Holding him up easily, I launched him towards the window, relishing the crash of glass and the heavy thud as the girl's attacker hit the ground heavily. In a split second Charlotte was on him, ripping off his cock and balls before burying her teeth into his neck, cutting off his gurgled scream at losing his genitalia.

She was furious and beautiful to watch.

The other men in the room froze, their minds unable to process what had just happened to their friend. I didn't give them the chance to work it out.

Another one went out the window, dinner for my companion, before I leapt upon the other two.

One was slammed into the wall opposite me and I quickly grabbed the other round his neck and yanked him towards me, his feet getting tangled up in the pants around his ankles. Crushing his back to my chest, I savoured his fear for a moment, letting the venom begin to run freely from my mouth. I struck just as the sounds of screams from below began to resonate around the room.

Drinking quickly, I drained the man in no time, wrinkling my nose as the sharp, acidic taste of alcohol in my dinner's bloodstream poured down my throat. I didn't waste much time though. I was hungry, and there was a virtual smorgasbord waiting for me downstairs.

A shuffling behind me caught my attention and threw the now cooling corpse away as I turned. Only to see the fourth man, who had been ineffectually sneaking up behind me, collapse to the floor, out cold. The girl from the bed – Bella, my memory supplied for me – stood behind him, a broken trophy in her hands, a horrified look upon her face.

She'd managed to pull her jeans back up, but the zip was broken and her shirt was ripped wide open, flashing her plain white bra at me.

She stared at me for a minute, but her fear had mostly dissipated; no doubt shock was beginning to take over her body's functions. She dropped the remnants of her prize and stumbled backwards, scrambling over her bed and collapsing in a corner.

I found myself raising my hands up gently and backing away, treating her like a scared animal. "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you." I don't know why I felt the need to reassure her, but I did.

Of course, the validity of my words was called into question a couple of seconds later when a bloodcurdling screech could be heard from downstairs.

Silent tears were now running down the girl's face, but there wasn't a lot I could do about it and I didn't know why I cared. Looking at the unconscious man on the floor, I raised my foot up and brought it down on his neck with such force that I nearly severed his head. I ignored the small whimper from the corner as I did so. Whirling around, I headed down the stairs into a study in scarlet.

Charlotte and Peter had done well, years together giving them a pack hunting instinct that they had worked to include me into. Charlotte was in the open-plan kitchen, terrorising two men who seemed mesmerized by her body slinking from side to side in front of them. Peter was reclined in an armchair splattered with blood, various body parts surrounding him in a macabre puzzle. He looked thoroughly satisfied with himself.

Two of the party-goers were still alive, lying unconscious on the stained carpet. He waved grandly towards them.

"Your dinner, Major."

I glared at him, but he merely smirked at me. Not wanting to waste anymore time here, especially as we were going to have to work out how to clean up the mess we had left, I quickly drunk my fill, not being neat over my feeding.

A bolt of lust hit me as I stood up and I stopped trying to clean up my face and looked at Peter instead. He crossed the room to me and held my head in place as he leant forward. I closed my eyes as his tongue came out to lap up the blood splashed across my mouth and chin. I suppressed my natural instincts and raised my chin trustingly, allowing his mouth to move over my neck.

A low groan and then a scream from the kitchen marked Charlotte's feeding and I cracked my eyes open to find her watching us intently, her eyes growing brighter as the fresh blood entered her system.

Peter grabbed my hair tightly, drawing my attention back to him, and we kissed, both our tongues searching out the small remnants of blood in each other's mouths. I gripped his shoulders, holding him to me.

One last scream was cut off by the snapping of a spine and I pulled away as Charlotte finished eating.

A low whining sound that had registered in the back of my mind when I got downstairs, now grew louder and I looked around quizzically.

"It's the mother," Charlotte explained, delicately licking at her fingers. "She won't shut up."

The mother indeed wouldn't shut up. She had hidden herself behind the sofa and was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, rocking to and fro. Her partner – if I could call him that – was lying directly across from her.

Well, most of him was; his head was nudging the toes of her feet as she sat there shaking.

I looked at my partners in crime.

"He heard the screams when you went upstairs, thought that he could play the hero," Peter shrugged. "He also said something about making sure you weren't damaging the merchandise. Charlotte lost her temper."

The tiny blonde waved her hand meekly. "Sorry. I didn't mean to."

I shook my head in exasperation. "We should probably start the clear up. Do they have a basement?"

"Through the kitchen," Peter offered.

I nodded and began to pick up the bodies, kicking the door to the basement open and throwing them in.

"What are you going to do about her?" I asked, indicating the whining woman.

"I don't know." Charlotte placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side – I smiled at her thinking pose. "I suppose we should ask the daughter if she wants her to stay alive." Her head shot towards me. "You didn't kill her too, did you?"

"No. Bella – that's her name, by the way – was alive and well when I left her. We're going to have to decide what we want to do about her too."

Charlotte was now glaring at me. "What do you mean, what we want to do with her?"

"Now, baby." Peter came up behind her and began to run his hands over her arms, calming her down. "You know that Jasper's only trying to make sure that we have every angle covered so the Volturi don't feel the need to step in."

She scowled at both of us before stomping up the stairs, muttering under her breath. I sighed but continued to throw dismembered limbs into the basement, having to go and fetch some of them from where they were scattered around the garden. Charlotte was a messy eater. Peter came back from somewhere with a bottle of accelerant and we poured tons of the stuff into the basement, before beginning to liberally coat the house. We wanted no trace of our actions left.

A stomping down the stairs revealed Charlotte dragging the young girl towards us. Bella, for her part, was doing her best to resist.

"Can we keep her?"

"What?" Peter felt as shocked as I was, obviously having no prior indication that his mate had gone insane.

"Bella. Can we keep her? Please. I really want her."

My brow furrowed. "You do get that she's not a toy, right? I mean, she's human, but not a toy."

She huffed at me, letting go of Bella's hand. The young girl immediately crossed her arms over her chest, her embarrassment and hysteria rising. I could only assume that she had noticed her partial nudity.

A pang of sympathy hit me from nowhere and without thinking, I stripped off my shirt and stepped forward, intending to wrap it around Bella's shoulders. She took a step back, her fear spiking, and I held up my hands in that placating gesture again.

Moving very slowly, I held out the shirt towards her and she snatched it before stumbling away from me, colliding painfully with the wall. She pulled it on and quickly buttoned it up to her neck.

Peter chuckled and I realised that I was the focus of his laughter, not the girl. "Having fun, Major?" he sniggered under his breath.

"Just burn the house down," I snapped.

He saluted me cheekily and then set about lighting a match. Charlotte whisked away upstairs again and returned with an old, battered suitcase, stuffed to the brim. She had obviously taken the time while she was fetching Bella to gather up her belongings. I sighed when I saw it.

"Fine, we can keep her...for a little while anyway."

"Yay!" Charlotte squealed and ran up to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, her excitement beginning to affect me.

"But we won't be able to keep her forever. At some point we'll have to either let her go or..." I shrugged. Charlotte eyed me suspiciously before deciding to ignore my warning. She was good at only hearing what she wanted to.

Peter threw a match into the basement and I heard the whoosh as it fell and the crackle of fire as it began to burn.

Heavy breathing to my left alerted me to the fact that Bella was now hyperventilating, her eyes so wide that they looked like they would pop. I made it across the room to catch her just as her body gave in and she fainted.

Scooping one arm behind her knees, I cradled her gently, trying not to clutch as her too tightly for fear of breaking her. Although, from what I'd seen earlier, she was tougher than she looked.

"Come on. Let's get out of here before the whole house burns down around us."

I made my way out onto the street with the girl, Charlotte and Peter following me. As I turned to begin walking home, Peter caught my elbow, stopping me in my path.

"What about the mother?"

I glanced back at the house which was now merrily burning and shrugged. I tried to put myself in the girl's place, wondering what I would want in this situation. "I doubt the girl will want her mother dead. Even if she's not much of a parent, she's still her mother."

Peter nodded. "You and Charlotte get her back home. I'll take care of this."

He headed back into the building and Charlotte and I ran back to our secluded mansion. For the first time since this afternoon, I was glad that we now had two bedrooms.

We were going to need both of them.


	2. Awakening

**Here's chapter two of this fic for you to peruse. I really hope that you like it. Cheers to the wonderful venis_envy for pre-reading this for me.**

**I still don't own Twilight, but I live in perpetual hope.**

**Awakening**

**CPOV**

I skipped alongside Jasper as we walked home, letting the momentum of the two suitcases swing my arms back and forth as we went.

He was more solemn as he walked, still cradling the girl – Bella – but holding her away from his body as if he didn't want her getting too close. She looked...terrible, not to put too fine a point on it. Her cheek was swelling up where someone had taken a swing at her and she was covered in blood, some of it her own, but mostly other people's.

It made me want to lick her, but I didn't think she'd appreciate waking up like that.

I wanted her to like us...and me. As much as I loved my boys, it would be nice to have another girl around for a while, maybe even permanently if I got my own way. They had agreed to us keeping her for now though, so I supposed I should just be happy with that.

"What are you so cheerful about?"

I offered Jasper a blinding smile. "We saved Bella and you said I could keep her. What's not to be happy about?"

He glared at me and my smile dimmed slightly before I forced it back upon my lips again. "It'll all work out, Jasper, I know it will."

"Oh, so you're psychic now?" he mocked.

His ire was rising and I felt it prickle across my skin. I dropped the bags onto the sidewalk and slipped my arms around Jasper's waist, my forehead pressed into his back. He stopped walking and leaned back into me.

"What would be the point of killing all of those men, if we then just left her there? She wouldn't be in any less danger. In fact, a young girl like that would be even more vulnerable, especially as she would be left by herself."

"You don't think her living in a household full of vampires makes her vulnerable?" I couldn't see his face, but I could hear the scepticism in his voice.

I thought carefully before answering. I wanted him to know that I was taking all of this seriously. "I think we're all very strong and as long as we want to keep her alive and well then we will. We've all fed well tonight; do you feel the urge to rip her throat out now?"

"No," he admitted.

I kissed the spot on his back between his shoulder-blades. "Then we'll just have to make sure we eat regularly and it'll all be fine.

Jasper broke out of my embrace and turned to face me. "And what if she doesn't want us to keep her? If she doesn't want to be turned then our only other option would be to kill her."

"At least it would be a decent death that we could offer her then. The Volturi would torture her to find out what she knew and then brutally murder her, or change her against her will and enslave her within the guard. Those men and her mother would have let her be brutalised in such a way that you don't come back from. Whether her mind or her body would have given up first is the question, but either way she wouldn't have survived intact."

He frowned but conceded the point. "Alright. Let's just hope this doesn't come back to bite you."

I raised an eyebrow at him suggestively. "I like being bitten."

"I know you do." He returned my smirk with one of his own. "But no biting until we get back home."

I picked up the suitcases and resumed swinging my arms. "I wonder what's taking Peter so long."

Jasper began walking up ahead of me. "He's probably just making sure that nothing happening in that house can be traced back to us...and dealing with the woman."

I frowned at the thought of that despicable woman who dared to call herself a mother. That she could do such a thing to her daughter...

"I still think we should have killed her," I muttered.

Jasper reached the driveway before me. "It's Bella's decision to make. If she wants her mother dead, then I'll be kind and let you have the kill, but if not..." He shrugged. "I think Peter might be terrifying the woman into confessing to the murders of her boyfriend and his friends."

"Serves her right if she goes to jail for a billion years."

I scowled as I held the door open for Jasper. He stood frozen in the hallway for a moment. "Where is Bella going to sleep?"

"Ummmmm." I searched my head for ideas. When we had been bashing walls in earlier we had only thought to open out the top floor into two massive bedrooms with studies attached. There was one bathroom upstairs, but I had accidentally smashed it to pieces a couple of days earlier during a particularly enthusiastic bout of lovemaking which had brought a wall down.

"There's a mattress in the old master bedroom," Jasper suggested.

I wrinkled my nose at the idea; Jasper was well aware of the exact goings-on that had happened on that particular piece of furniture, but I was struggling to come up with another solution. We really needed more furniture in this house, but we had been so excited about having somewhere new to decorate that Peter had burned most of the old furniture when we got here.

"Fine. She can have the mattress. But because she's human she'll probably need to sleep a lot, so we should maybe buy her a bed."

"If you like." Jasper carried her upstairs and set her unconscious form on the aforementioned mattress before turning to look at me. "Definitely need to get her a bed...and get ourselves some furniture while we're at it."

"Blah, shopping." I shuddered exaggeratedly. "Let's get Peter to do it. He's got the best control of all of us."

I stepped closer to Jasper and folded my hands over his shoulder, using him as a prop so I could raise myself up onto my toes and whisper in his ear.

"All those humans crammed together, pushing and shoving mindlessly with no clue of the danger they're really in. The scent of them – the sweat dripping down their skin, all that blood just pumping away heating their bodies." I traced a nail down the line of his throat where the pulsing of his jugular should be. I could feel his arousal growing stronger and begin to affect mine. I couldn't help it; I always got hot and bothered after a good hunt. "Those thin blue lines, mapping out their lifeblood as it flows around, just under their skin." I dug my nail into his neck, pushing hard until I knew he could feel the slight sting of pain. I continued to croon in his ear, feeling the growl building up in his chest. "Think how easy it would be to lure some pretty young thing into a quiet corner or a dressing room, to press your finger against their neck, just like I am now, and feel all that fresh blood just pour out over your skin."

I had him.

I just hadn't expected him to fuck me in this room in front of our unconscious guest.

I was against the wall in a flash, my second pair of ruined jeans for the day tossed across the room. I thought about teasing Jasper about his lack of control, but in that instance he pushed himself into me forcefully and I swallowed the words on the tip of my tongue as I gasped at the feeling of him inside me.

I loved Peter, I really did; he was my mate. Sex with him was always beautiful and poetic and fulfilling, no matter how rough it got. But there was something about being with Jasper... He reminded me of a caged animal, raw, wild and untamed. You could pet and coddle him one moment, but you never knew when he would reach his limit and snap. You always felt that there was a possibility that he would caress you one moment, then rip your head off the next.

It didn't mean that we trusted him any less. Hell, I would guarantee that he would protect me to the death, but the thrill of danger always remained.

It was that thrill, after barely five seconds of being felt up, that sent me spiralling into my first orgasm, screaming out my delight to the world.

Jasper gripped me even tighter as I let go, my hip groaning in protest as his hand squeezed me forcefully. He grunted as he continued to piston into me, the wall creaking ominously as it took the brunt of our weight.

Whimpering, I unleashed my own strength and lust upon him, the high I was floating on stripping me of my control. I caressed his shoulders, admiring the musculature with my fingers, and then dug my nails in deeply enough that I knew he could feel his skin parting and then immediately reforming.

He let go of my hips, relying on my legs wrapped around him and the force of his thrusts to hold me up. One hand pinned my shoulders back against the wall, while the other wrapped tightly around the back of my neck – a warning to me to be careful.

A prickling, almost burning, sensation began to tease me under my skin and I whined at the feeling. My body was on fire and I tried to wriggle, to rub myself against Jasper, to alleviate the itch. He wouldn't let me though and I realised that while I had been caught up in the moment, he had effectively restrained me.

Looking up at him, his eyes had darkened once more with desire; I knew he could see the moment I realised what he had done. A slow smile crossed his face as he witnessed my struggle for friction. He slowed his pace down deliberately, sliding slowly inside me, so I could feel every inch of him, before withdrawing quickly, small gasps escaping my mouth every time he pulled out abruptly.

The prickling grew stronger as Jasper began to pant, his brow furrowed as he tried to keep to his rhythm. I realised that he was feeding me his lust, but not enough of it to help tip me over the edge again.

This was my punishment for marking him.

I knew what would happen, even though I tried to ignore it. I began to clench my internal muscles, knowing that the rhythm would eventually tip Jasper over...I could only hope that I would be taken along for the ride too, even though I knew Jasper was aiming to prevent my orgasm from happening.

As it turned out, neither of us had the opportunity.

A small whimpering came from the middle of the room and we both froze, turning in slow motion to look at the small girl lying on the mattress.

She twitched before her whole body shuddered and her eyelids began fluttering. Her sleep was becoming more and more disturbed and it was only a matter of time before she woke. Her sounds of distress were getting louder and I felt Jasper wince imperceptibly as her emotions began to affect his mood.

Looks like we weren't going to finish this tonight after all.

Jasper's thoughts must have echoed mine as, with a sigh, he released my head and shoulders and grasped me around the waist, lifting me off him. I whimpered myself as he did - disgruntled at the feel of him pulling out of me when I knew he wasn't going to push back in again. My body was still shaking with the remnants of the lust he had thrown at me earlier, but I knew that the moment had passed and it wasn't going to be slaked any time soon.

"Stop pouting," he commanded, softening the order with a kiss on the tip of my nose. "At least you got to come at all; I didn't even have that."

Checking quickly that Bella was still out for the count, I ran one finger down his bare chest, taunting him. "Poor Jasper. How you suffer."

He grabbed my hand before it could go any lower and smirked. "Don't worry. I'll just have you blow me later to take the edge off."

My jaw dropped as he smacked my ass on the way out the room, pulling up and fastening his jeans as he left.

"Oh, and Charlotte... you might want to put some underwear and pants on before Bella wakes up. Just so you don't shock the girl."

I scowled at his back as he sauntered out of sight and downstairs. As I frantically searched the room for something to put on my lower half, I cursed the boys for ruining half my wardrobe. Looks like Peter would be replenishing that as well when he went shopping for Bella. Luckily, I was kinder to the boys' clothes than they were to mine, and I managed to retrieve a pair of undamaged sweats belonging to my mate that I wriggled into. Unfortunately, I had to roll the legs up several times before I could walk properly. I may be a vampire, with all the inherent grace that came with it, but I could still be easily tripped up by my own clothes.

Jasper was stalking around downstairs and I felt an unnatural calm begin to spread through the house – he was doing his best to help, even if its effect on Bella was minimal. The click of the door alerted me to my mate's arrival and I smiled at the sound of his voice as he asked Jasper how we had been getting on with our new pet.

As if answering him, Bella had began to shout, thrashing around on the mattress and I wasn't sure whether I should let her wake up naturally or try to jolt her out of her nightmare. I didn't have to make the decision in the end as the girl screamed piercingly before jolting awake.

She lay perfectly still for a moment, her eyes darting around, taking in the part of the room that she could see. Its strangeness registered fairly quickly and she bolted upright, scrabbling clumsily off the mattress it the centre of the room and backing into the corner of the room. She scanned the area, flinching when she caught sight of me.

I took a tentative step forward. "Hi Bella."

She looked shocked that I knew her name.

"I'm Charlotte. Do you remember me?"

Bella shrunk back further against the wall, burying her face in Jasper's oversized shirt that she still wore. My lips twitched as I realised that she found the item of clothing comforting. It looked like Jasper might become her favourite in the house if the way she reacted to his shirt was anything to go by.

Bella was still staring at me blankly though, so I needed to explain. "Do you remember being at the house, with your mother and her... friends?" I struggled to find the right word to describe those animals; or rather, I knew the right word for them, but I didn't think losing my temper in front of Bella would give her much incentive to trust me.

The girl in the corner shivered, her entire body tensing and an almost imperceptible shake running through her body. All the colour she had drained from her face and she clenched her eyes shut.

Concerned, I took another step forward. "Bella? Are you alright?"

"Yes," she mumbled, not opening her eyes. "Yes, I remember."

I nodded sympathetically. The poor girl was traumatised. I could only hope that I didn't increase the distress that she was already suffering from.

"And then me and my friends came..." I prompted. "They didn't get to hurt you in the end."

Her eyes flew open and she studied me keenly; I felt like I was being carefully assessed. She licked her dry lips, deciding what she was going to say. I recognised her caution in addressing me; I was still an unknown entity, she hadn't decided yet how I was going to react.

"There was a man," she said softly. "He stopped them from..." A choked sob left her throat and she covered her face with her hands. Moving closer, I sat down next to her, watching as she tried to compose herself. She seemed unwilling to look at me while she was still crying though, so I decided to fill in some of the blanks for her. I could hear the men downstairs, listening in to the conversation. They were as interested as I was in what Bella remembered and what she thought of us.

"That was Jasper. He came up to your room to stop the men who were trying to rape you."

Bella began to laugh hysterically and I wondered if she had been pushed too far and her mind had snapped under the pressure of what had happened.

She was crying again now, only this time they were tears of hysteria rather than sorrow. "He ate one of them." This sent off another round of giggles and the boys began to make their way cautiously up the stairs towards us. Bella counted her fingers on her hand. "Two went out the window, one was eaten and one had his neck snapped." She finally turned to look at me with glassy eyes. "I don't mind that they're dead, you know."

Even though I felt the same way, I was shocked to hear those thoughts coming from a young girl.

"No, I don't mind. I'm glad he killed them."

Peter and Jasper hovered the door, watching our interaction, but Bella seemed oblivious to them now that she was talking to me.

"You killed all of the rest of them too, didn't you? All of the ones downstairs?" Her cold tone was beginning to disturb me.

"Yes," I hesitated before admitting to it. "We did. Myself and my mate Peter."

"You killed all of them?"

I paused again. "Yes."

"She doesn't feel anything." Jasper's statement, muttered quietly, took me by surprise. "It's like there's a blanket covering her emotions. She's completely disconnected."

I didn't know what to say to that, but I certainly wasn't going to argue with him, especially when Bella was speaking so calmly about murder like this...humans just didn't react like that normally.

"She's been through a lot of trauma," my mate included. "It's probably her mind's way of coping with what's happening to her. I think just treat her as normally as possible and hopefully she'll snap out of it by herself." Peter smiled at me. "Don't worry, Char, this should only be temporary."

I nodded, but wasn't convinced. Bella was back to staring blankly into the room and I touched her shoulder lightly to gain her attention without startling her. "Bella?"

"Are you vampires?" she asked suddenly, curiously.

We all froze, taken aback. Jasper and Peter moved further into the room.

"What makes you think that?" my mate questioned warily.

Bella laughed again and turned to face him for the first time. "Because I saw _him_," she pointed at Jasper, "eat someone. But he didn't eat him, he drank his blood. That's a vampire thing." She said it so matter-of-factly, as if we should all know this.

I was impressed. Bella had worked out that we were vampires, she had watched us murder and eat people in front of her and she was now behaving completely normally in front of us. No screaming, no crying, no begging for her life, just plain, hard facts. It was very refreshing and it became apparent that, despite her shock now, saving Bella had been the best decision we could make.

"You don't have a problem with that?" Jasper's voice held a note of interest that hadn't been there previously.

Her eyes fixed upon him, a dull spark coming back into them. "You said you wouldn't hurt me."

He shook his head slightly and she smiled, clarifying her statement. "When you saved me, when you came into my room, you said you wouldn't hurt me. Presumably that means you won't kill me either. I trust you."

Jasper reeled back at her simple statement, her faith in him taking all of us by surprise. "I could have been lying," he bluffed.

She eyed him keenly and then turned her head to look at Peter and I. "I think if you were lying, I would already be dead," she reasoned.

Jasper looked like he didn't know what to say, so Peter took over. "Bella, you do understand that now you know what we are, we can't let you go. We can't risk you telling anyone what we are. It needs to remain secret, for your sake as much as ours. Understand?"

Bella nodded, her gaze back on Jasper. "So I don't have to go back home?"

"No," he offered evenly. "You won't be going back. You'll have to stay with us now, where we can keep an eye on you until...Well, until."

She buried her face in her hands and I barely heard her mutter, "Thank God."

I stifled a triumphant smile at that. Bella didn't mind being here with us, she was happy to stay. I could've jumped up in the air and clapped my hands together in my excitement. Jasper threw an exasperated grin my way, but I could tell that my good mood was beginning to affect him.

Bella raised her head and we all grew sober again. I knew that, despite appearances, we would still have to tread delicately for a little while until she got to grips with us and our situation.

"Ummm," she seemed reluctant to say something, so at odds with her earlier bold attitude. "What happened...?" She swallowed thickly. "In the house... What happened to the house?"

Peter came to sit facing us so that he was at eye level with Bella. "We burnt it down. Threw the bodies in the basement and torched the place. When I passed it earlier, the fire-fighters had no chance of stopping it until it's all gone."

The colour had drained from Bella's face again. She was confusing, this human; one minute she was scared, the next she was sassily taking on Jasper, and the next she was back to being a frightened little girl. I guess I was forgetting with everything that was going on, just how young she was. Appearances of youth meant nothing in our world, so I had dismissed the childlike features that lingered on her face. In a couple of years' time, all her puppy fat would be gone and she would begin to settle better into her features. She snuffled involuntarily and I moved a little closer to her and put my arm over her shoulder comfortingly.

She hesitated before speaking again. "Did... Was there a woman there?"

Ah. This was what we had been worried about. The mother.

Jasper shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot, while Peter scratched the back of his head sheepishly. We all wanted the mother dead – she was a pathetic excuse for a human – but it wasn't our decision to make. I caught Peter's eye questioningly, unsure as to what he had actually done with the woman.

"Do you mean your mother, Bella?" Jasper finally asked.

"Renee," she nodded. "She was downstairs earlier in the evening with... Did you kill her too?"

"No," Peter declared. "We didn't kill her."

"We wanted to," I butted in, earning a frown each from the boys. "Well, I wanted to..."

"What Charlotte is trying to eloquently say, is that we left your mother alive," Jasper interrupted me. "It will be your decision whether we kill her or not."

Bella's lip was trembling, but as I watched, the frown the smoothed out from her face and she relaxed ever so slightly against me. Jasper was working his magic on her as he talked.

"Now, at the moment, your mother is in custody and will probably be going to jail, but it's up to you what happens to her from now on. If you want her alive, then she'll remain alive, but in prison. However, if you want her dead, then it's done."

Bella didn't react to that, but her hands began to twist nervously in front of her. Peter placed his hand over hers, stopping the agitated movement, but she jerked back away from him, whimpering. Obviously she was feeling wary after her experiences earlier in the night. Looks like I would be helping her around from now on, at least until she got used to the boys being around.

The dazed look had returned to her face and she looked around without really seeing anything...at least, until she caught sight of herself. Her eyes slammed shut and she turned her face aside into my shoulder.

"The blood," she croaked.

I winced, knowing that in mine and Jasper's lusty haze, we had forgotten about trying to clean her up and change her ruined clothes. Consequently, she was still covered in other people's blood.

Oops.

On the plus side, I thought the blood splatters made her look rather more attractive, sort of rumpled and primal, but I could understand why she might have a problem with it.

"You've got some clean clothes in your suitcase over there that you can change into. If you want to clean up, I'm afraid you'll only be able to have a shower in the bathroom downstairs. We're...remodelling up here." Peter snorted at my explanation and I glared at him.

Grabbing some clean clothes for Bella, I took her down to the bathroom and left her to get cleaned up. The boys were discussing decorating and buying furniture now that we had Bella living with us.

"She's going to have to have her own bedroom, so I say we stick with the original plan – two bedrooms, two studies and maybe we should put a new bathroom in up here for her, seeing as you two destroyed the last one," Jasper remarked.

"We're going to need to go shopping; she can't stay on that mattress forever, and I'd quite like a bed myself," my mate was saying.

"Good idea," I chimed in. "Why don't you two go to the mall tomorrow and I'll stay here with Bella?"

Both of them shot me a withering look. "You don't get out of it that easily, Char."

I pouted. "Well, who's going to go then?"

We were at an impasse, none of us particularly thrilled at venturing out into the human world, particularly when we had an unknown element among us.

"Why don't we order everything in?" Peter suggested. "That way none of us have to worry about the sunlight and Bella can select her own furniture. She'll probably need other stuff too – clothes, toiletries, that sort of thing."

We all leapt upon the idea with relief. Being in the house with a live human was going to be tricky enough, no point in making it worse for us by surrounding ourselves with them. Jasper and Peter wandered off to work out how exactly to re-piece together the house that we had only just destroyed to make it suitable for Bella to live in. I stayed in the bedroom, waiting for her to come back up, in case she needed me

After about an hour, she finally made her way up to the room, wet hair neatly brushed, clean, non-bloody pyjamas on, and face red and puffy. She must have been crying in the shower, I realised, but it was strange that none of us had heard her distress.

"Are you alright, Bella?"

She looked up, startled, as if she hadn't expected anyone to be waiting for her.

"I'm fine, thank you." The clinical tone of voice was back, but I had to listen to Peter and accept that this was a natural reaction to what had happened to her, instead of pushing for some kind of emotional response.

I still had to try though. "Was there anything else you wanted to know at the moment? About us or what's going to happen now?"

The strain was now clearly showing on Bella's face. "I'd just like to get some sleep, thank you."

"Of course." I fidgeted as she lay back down on the mattress. "I'll just go and get you some blankets."

She nodded but didn't reply.

By the time I got back up to the room, after scouring half the house for the linens that we had never used, Bella was asleep.

More importantly, she wasn't alone.

She lay quietly, peacefully sleeping, with her head in Jasper's lap.

How interesting.


	3. Curiouser and Curiouser

**Here's the next chapter of Keep Me Forever. I really hope you like it and I apologise for not posting an update sooner. As always, I own nothing apart from the plot.**

**Curiouser and Curiouser**

**PPOV**

I had had to stifle my laughter when Charlotte had fetched me to see what was going on in what had newly been christened 'Bella's room.' From her sharp tugs on my sleeve and her hasty whispers to "come here," I had half expected to find that Jasper had changed his mind about allowing my mate to keep her new human and just drained her.

Instead what I had found was much... cuter.

Jasper, quite possibly the fiercest and most vicious vampire I had ever come across, was sat cross-legged at one end of the mattress, whilst Bella lay stretched out in front of him, her head in his lap, soundly asleep. The lines on her face had smoothed over and her body no longer held the tenseness of consciousness. My friend was obviously working his magic on her, although I was curious to know how they had ended up in such a position in the first place.

Charlotte was giggling quietly next to me and Jasper was glaring at both of us, daring us to say something. I settled for a raised eyebrow, not saying anything.

He scowled at me. "Fuck off."

I smirked but did as he said, I could smell when I came into the house that both he and my mate had been left wanting; the frustration, plus the intensity of the hunt that evening, would have heightened his emotions to such a point that I didn't want to provoke him further in case he snapped.

Wrapping my arm around Char's waist, I dragged her backwards out of the room, tossing the old blankets she held in her arms in Jasper's general direction. I led her downstairs, back towards the backyard of the house. Once outside, I collapsed ungracefully onto the lawn and stretched out. Charlotte stood looking down at me for a few seconds before shrugging and lying down next to me. I rolled onto my side to face her, propping my head up on my hand and brushing away the hair that had fallen in front of her face.

She hummed and closed her eyes in pleasure at the gesture and I continued to run my fingers gently through her hair. I may not have Jasper's empathic abilities but I did know what my mate found soothing.

She looked so beautiful lying there, the light of the moon shining down on her face. A faint glow of light seemed to reflect off her pale hair, creating a glow around her. I chuckled lightly.

"What?" she grumbled quietly.

"You look like an angel in this light," I told her.

She smirked at me. "An angel? Really?"

I grinned back. "Would you prefer that I call you a devil instead?"

Her smile slowly slid away. "It would be more appropriate," she remarked quietly.

I frowned at her answer. It wasn't like her to be so introspective. Cupping her cheek, I turned her head to meet mine.

"Hey, what's up, angel?"

She shook her head in denial that anything was wrong, but from the look on her face, I could tell that she felt the opposite.

"Charlotte?" I drew out her name persuasively and she huffed in annoyance at my cajoling tone of voice before sighing. Pushing on my shoulder, she rolled me back onto my back and climbed on top of me so that she was sprawled across my chest.

It wasn't sexual in any way, but I couldn't help the erection that rose to press against the soft curve of her stomach. She was enough of a lady not to mention it or squirm on top of me, so I decided to ignore my body's physical reaction. With Jasper's empathic abilities and Charlotte's incredibly high sex drive, arousal was just a general state of being in our house, and we all knew that a physical reaction didn't necessarily mean that sex was required or imminent.

Warmth began to seep down through my chest from where she was laid on top of me. With our bodies pressed as close together as they were, I felt, rather than heard, her sigh.

"Charlotte?" I prompted again, my voice sterner this time. "What's wrong?"

She tilted her head up so that her chin was propped up against my sternum.

"Nothing really," she hedged, fidgeting uncomfortably with the buttons on my shirt.

I arched a disbelieving eyebrow at her. "If it was nothing, Char, then you would be trying to finish with me what you started earlier with Jasper before I got home, not lying here looking as though the world is about to end."

She scoffed at my exaggeration, but I noticed that this time she didn't try to pretend that nothing was bothering her.

She hesitated and then finally seemed to come to a conclusion in her head. Sliding off me sideway, she sat up, curling her legs underneath her looking down at me thoughtfully.

"I'm worried about Bella."

Of all the things I had been expecting her to say, that wasn't one of them.

"Have you changed your mind about wanting to keep her?" I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral. "Because it might not be your decision anymore if Jasper continues to bond with her...even if she is asleep."

"No, no," she rushed to correct me, "nothing like that. I still want to keep her and I still think that she would be a beautiful vampire when she's old enough to be changed..."

"But..."

She hesitated. "I just think it's a shame that she's going to be a vampire, that's all."

I was confused. Sitting up, I took Charlotte's hands in my own. "What do you mean? Do you think we should have left her back there, or killed her?"

"No," she rushed to reply, but then paused. My mate looked as if she was struggling to say what she wanted to, so I remained quiet, waiting for her so sort out the events of the evening in her own head.

The silence grew between us, and the sounds of the night around us began to intrude into our private bubble. About a mile down the road two cats were fighting, their hissing and snarling was interspersed with almost inaudible clinks as their claws skittered over the metallic surface of a garbage can.

The married couple in the house next to ours were making love, their moans and grunts urgent as they struggled towards their climaxes. I wondered why they were awake so late before realising that the lust Jasper and Charlotte had been projecting earlier must have spread across the neighbourhood. The man reached his peak first, calling out to God before the rumbling of his snores began to vibrate across the air. I briefly felt sorry for his wife, who huffed in frustration before stomping down the stairs and flicked on the television. The artificial noise broke through the stillness of the night in a way that the other noises didn't, jarring my senses with its harshness. A second later the woman began to whimper again, mumbling quietly to herself and bemoaning the insensitivity of her partner as she used her fingers to get herself off.

Upstairs Bella wriggled in her sleep, the small movement too much for the old mattress to bear, its springs creaking ominously as she settled down again. She cried out briefly in her sleep and I heard Jasper softly mumble to her that she was safe. If he hadn't been quietly talking to her, I would never notice that he was up there at all.

A question that had been niggling in the back of my mind came forward now and I studied the troubled profile of my mate, wondering if asking would help at all or just make her feel worse.

"Just ask, Peter. I can hear you thinking from over here."

She smiled softly at me and I rewarded her with a grin.

"Why do you think that I want to ask you anything?" I teased.

Charlotte leaned forward and ran her finger downwards over the bridge of my nose. "I know because you get this little line here that tells me that you're thinking and that you might want to say something."

Her finger continued downwards over my face and I gently caught the digit between my teeth as it passed over my mouth. Suckling gently on the pad of her finger, I enjoyed the flash of awareness in her eyes and she unconsciously began to lean in towards me. I bit down, hard enough for the venom to sting, but soft enough so that she wouldn't be left with a scar, and then released her finger. Raising her hand to her own mouth, she sucked lightly on the small wound that I had left there before lowering her hand and smiling at me.

"Just ask," she coaxed.

I narrowed my eyes, cataloguing the expression on her face before I finally spoke up.

"Why did you insist on keeping Bella? I know that we couldn't have just left her there after what she had seen – Jasper wasn't too subtle when he was throwing rapists out of her bedroom window and snapping necks everywhere – but it's never been an issue before. We've seen thousands of young girls die, and killed or changed most of them ourselves, so I just can't get my head around what makes this one different."

Charlotte ducked her head in embarrassment. "I just didn't like that this one didn't have any options."

"Any options?"

"Yes." She sat up straighter. "Before when we've come across girls like Bella, they've had everything they ever wanted in life – they're spoilt or loved or untroubled by everything that's happening around them." She paused. "When we've hunted them, we at least know that they've had a life, that they've had moments of happiness and sadness and contentment. It's one of the reasons why we've never hunted children or babies."

I nodded and waited for her to continue.

"But Bella... You saw how she was living, what they were going to do to her. There was nothing but pain and fear there. Just the look in her eyes..." Charlotte shuddered at the memory. "And there we were, hunting her attackers and ready to kill her just so she wouldn't be able to tell on us. It seemed...unfair."

Charlotte looked up at me pleadingly. "I know that she had to die, or be changed, just so she could keep us secret, but I don't imagine either of those is what she would've chosen for herself if she had the chance. So surely it was better that we keep her for a while, let her live and experience life, rather than end it all in that grubby little house?" Her voice lilted upwards at the end, almost making what she said a question and for some reason it irritated me.

"Are you asking my permission now to keep her? Because Jasper's already said you could so I don't know why you're bothering." A slight tinge of bitterness coloured my voice and I recoiled slightly at the sound of it. It wasn't that it bothered me that Jasper was in charge of us...not really anyway. He was both mine and Charlotte's maker so it had been entirely natural for him to take charge of our little family once he had fled Maria's army and joined us. Sometimes though, I just resented the fact that Charlotte only felt it necessary in times such as this to consult his opinion and get his permission when I was her mate and part of this coven too.

"Shhh," she crooned, inching closer to me, one arm wrapping around my shoulders and giving her the leverage to shift her body so that she was sat in my lap, the other hand coming up to cup my cheek and turn my face back towards hers. "You know I love and I'd always ask you normally. But I wanted..."

"You wanted what?" I questioned, resigned.

Charlotte scratched her nails carefully over my cheek. "I wanted a friend. I know I have you and Jasper, but sometimes you two are just such...guys."

My bad mood evaporated as quickly as it had appeared and I snorted at her pronouncement. "I'm not sure we can really help that, you know, sweetheart."

"I know." She dotted comforting kisses across my face. "But sometimes I just want another woman to talk to – it's a bit lonely being the only one sometimes – and when I saw Bella and knew that she would have to be gotten rid of somehow..."

"You decided to keep her," I finished for her.

"And I didn't think you'd mind," she added.

I sighed and hugged her closer, my hand running soothingly up and down her back. I was still a little annoyed that she hadn't thought to consult me before making her decision, but at the same time, the faint niggling of guilt hit me from not noticing that my mate was a little lonely with just Jasper and I for company.

As if she sensed me weakening, Charlotte continued, "And this way she can at least have an interesting life before she's forced to choose whether she dies or whether she becomes one of us."

"And in the meantime you get a friend."

My mate pouted playfully at me. "Well, I've got to get something out of it, haven't I?"

"It looks like both she and Jasper will benefit from her living with us, so why shouldn't I as well?"

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't help laughing at her. "And what do I get out of it?"

Charlotte grinned. "You get a happy mate, and the happier I am, the more it benefits you." She wriggled on my lap as she said that, emphasizing her point and reawakening my arousal as she did.

I had to hand it to Charlotte, she knew exactly how to wind me and Jasper around her little finger so she could get her own way.

"Oh of course," I drawled, letting her know that I saw through her ploy, "it's all to benefit me, of course."

"Naturally," she beamed.

I mock scowled at her, but she already knew that she had won me over and caught my lips with her own, thanking me for my indulgence.

We kissed for an age, slowly and passionately, short, tender pecks, and playful, challenging nips against the soft flesh of our mouths. I didn't feel the need to take anything further. As much as it would have been fun to continue what she and Jasper had started earlier, our conversation had taken the edge off our lust and we were content just to touch and reaffirm our bond.

The sky began to lighten around us as we embraced, a faint shimmer rippling over our skin as the first rays of the sun sought to penetrate our bodies.

The faint sound of someone walking down the stairs inside the house eventually caught my attention and I pulled away from Charlotte regretfully, giving her one last lingering kiss before I turned my head to face Jasper as he walked out of the back door, blinking hesitantly against the light of dawn before his eyes adjusted.

Charlotte shifted in my lap so that she was now cradled between my legs, her back against my chest, so we could both face him as he gracefully sprawled out in front of us, his body twisting round as he lay so that his head was resting against Charlotte's thighs. He closed his eyes as her hand snuck out of our embrace to trace across his furrowed brow and I saw him take a deep breath before relaxing as he exhaled. The tension seemed to drain out of his body and I guessed that he was absorbing the peace and affection between Charlotte and I.

"How bad is she?" my mate asked softly, her fingers continuing to map out his features as she talked.

That was the one thing that I had gotten used to very quickly around Jasper. Vampires were very tactile creatures and when they felt emotions as strongly as he did, affectionate touch was incredibly important in helping him to relax.

"Traumatised, but nothing more than you'd expect," he said. "She was having a couple of bad dreams up there, so it was easier to calm her down than risk her screaming out loud and damaging my ears."

I raised my eyebrows at his studied nonchalant tone of voice. It almost sounded like he was trying very hard to sound like he didn't care, rather than actually not caring.

"We were both very surprised that you allowed her to go to sleep on top of you." I tried to emulate his disinterest, but couldn't contain the thread of amusement that ran through the words.

He scowled up at me, but there was no real anger in his expression; if there had been, we would all be at each other's throats already.

"I was trying to keep her calm," he repeated, his jaw clenched.

Charlotte and I exchanged a knowing glance, but didn't say anything else. Baiting Jasper was always fun, but I was always careful just in case our playful behaviour led to him losing his temper.

I studied his face as Charlotte began to chatter on about all her plans for Bella, detailing all the things they could do together, how it would be having a human living in the house with us, how she couldn't wait to see what she was like in bed...

That last one caught my attention and I calmly clapped a hand over her mouth, stopping her talking.

"Charlotte," I reprimanded. "You just told me you wanted a friend, not a fuck buddy."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jasper smirking up at us.

"Well, yes," she replied, confused. "But you know, we're all friends and we all fuck each other."

I shook my head, but didn't argue. Once Char had something in her head it was usually impossible to get it out again.

"Just bear in mind that Bella's very young, too young, and she might not actually want anything to do with us, especially before you go making plans as to what you want to do with her.

She giggled and then whispered in my ear. "What if it's not about what I want to do with her, but about what Jasper wants to do with her?"

"Hey!" he protested, sitting up abruptly, his hair hanging in his face. "I never said anything about wanting to do anything with her."

Charlotte tossed her head triumphantly. "You don't have to say anything, Jasper. You forget - we've known you for so long that we can tell what you want without you even saying it...or admitting it."

She went to say more, but this time I hushed her, noting the mounting look of fury on Jasper's face. "Let's just leave it, shall we, darling? I don't think Bella's going to be in any state to be thinking about relationships after everything she's been through lately."

Charlotte turned her head and stuck her tongue out at me, but didn't tease Jasper anymore. Even she knew when best to stop before limbs was started flying everywhere.

"Oh fine." She leaned over to give Jasper a kiss, the movement pushing her ass further into my groin and making me groan, before granting me a kiss of my own. "I'm going to go and wait for Bella to wake up. I bet she'll be excited to see me nonetheless, even if she doesn't want to jump my bones just yet."

Both of us watched her go with our mouths wide open.

"I really don't know where she gets half of this stuff," Jasper finally commented.

I shook my head. "TV mostly, I think. She's obsessed by these fake high school shows and it's given her some strange ideas."

Jasper laughed. "Does that mean you're not going to take me to prom as a pretext to get me drunk and steal my virtue?"

"Only if you beg nicely enough," I mocked. "Hopefully, she won't be quite as forward with the girl when she wakes up."

"I'm sure Charlotte will behave in whatever manner she sees fit," he mused, "regardless of anything that you or I say."

I hummed noncommittally in reply and shut my eyes, allowing the sounds of the new day and Charlotte watching TV to lull me into a state of relaxation. Jasper's hand against mine brought me out of my reverie though.

I opened my eyes to find him watching me cautiously.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

I frowned in confusion. "For what?"

"For not asking," he admitted. "For not even thinking that you should be asked." His guilt seeped across the air between us as I realised that he had been listening as Charlotte and I had argued earlier.

"I've been around the two of you for so long that I sometimes forget that you don't always think the same. I just assumed that as Charlotte was so set on keeping Bella that you wouldn't have an issue with it and for that I apologise."

"It's not a problem," I reassured him. "And I understand. It never really bothers me normally, but..." My words caught in my throat as I struggled with how to describe what I was feeling.

I could feel the edges of my consciousness being tentatively probed by Jasper's gift and I closed my eyes and let everything I was feeling about Bella's arrival flow between us.

Satisfaction, anticipation, fear, anger and concern all swirled together. I hadn't realised that I had been quite so conflicted about the new arrival.

My concentration was broken when Jasper's mouth pressed against mine, his lips coaxing mine open, his tongue encouraging mine to meet his. I kissed him back without hesitation, knowing that this was more about comfort than it was about passion.

We broke apart slowly, our lips brushing against each other several times before I sat back. I held Jasper's eyes as he studied my face, obviously checking to make sure that I really was content with having a new pet in the house. Acknowledging my unspoken report, a small smile slid across his mouth, making me want to kiss him again.

I would have as well, except that at that moment, the name of the suburb where Bella's house had been located caught my attention on the news programme that Charlotte was watching. I stood up, curious to find out what the official verdict was on the damage I had wrought. Offering Jasper my hand, I tugged him upwards until he crashed into my body. Wrapping an arm around my waist, he led me into the living room and we stood in the doorway, watching as an overenthusiastic redhead tried to add a sense to gravitas to the event occurring a couple of neighbourhoods away.

"Looks like you might have been too successful in cleaning up the crime scene, lover," Charlotte commented, her eyes still fixed onto the large, plasma screen that had somehow survived our rampages, despite the furniture around it being completely destroyed.

I watched as the news camera panned out to an overhead shot of the area where we had wreaked carnage the night before.

I had thrown oil and alcohol all over the house in order to accelerate the fire that I had used to conceal our presence, but it appeared that I hadn't been as careful as I thought I was. Several of the trees close to the house had caught fire as the wind picked up, spreading the flames across the street and setting the two closest houses alight. The entire street was now aflame and a part of me wondered why none of us had sensed the drifting smoke when we were outside.

Although, I suppose we had all had other things on our minds.

"Oh well," I shrugged, "hopefully if they're so worried about containing the fire, then they won't be so concerned by all the bodies they find."

"If they find any," Charlotte commented. "It's possible that if it gets any worse, then there won't be any bodies left to find."

Jasper stepped away from me and leaned against the back of the broken armchair that my mate was perched upon. "Either way, I think we can be assured that we're in the clear as far as the deaths are concerned." Leaning over, he grabbed the remote control from Charlotte's lap and switched the channel over to a cookery show.

Charlotte protested for a second before she caught what mine and Jasper's ears had already heard.

Soft footsteps tread carefully down the stairs. The sound of breathing grew quicker as our houseguest's heartbeat sped up.

Bella was awake.


End file.
